CRITICAL:
"It's hard to dismantle the mechanisms of terror"
By Rosa MORA
El Salvador in 1980 is the scene of the maid and the wrestler, the fourth novel in the saga of Aragon: an extreme and shocking story in which the author emphasizes the details of everyday life "in the worst cruelties"
novels Horacio Castellanos Moya not leave indifferent and the maid and the fighter unless no. The intensity of the prose and the story told the reader not provide respite. "It's a tremendous history of people who, in the midst of terrible conflict, always expressed the most extreme of human beings ".
We are in San Salvador in 1980, in late February and early March, shortly before the assassination of Monsignor Romero. From the first pages we know Albert, grandson of Mr. Pericles Aragon already met in Tirana earlier novels such as memory, and his wife, Brita, have been arrested, perhaps better kidnapped and taken to the infamous Black Palace, where it softens and torture of subversive and where many are gone for ever not be found.
The repressive government and so-called subversive, increasingly organized and armed, they face death. "The situation in El Salvador was irreversible. It was thought that something would emerge in the center, but there was no remedy, attracted ends. The daily life in that political context is like a big dark cloud from which there is no way to escape : details of daily life in the worst cruelties. "
The Viking is a former wrestler. He's old and sick. His current task is to soften up the detainees, but he likes is go fishing at the dam, but do not let him say he has lost reflexes, so we have basements. But this time, they let you out of hunting, by Albert and Brita.
Maria Elena served at Don and Dona Haydee Pericles, and the Aragon family asked to attend Albert's house. It is she who hears the homilies of Monsignor Romero, who realizes that the couple had disappeared. He fears the worst. Reza because they do not hurt.
Given the passivity of Aragon, who rely on their contacts to find theoretical Albertico and Brita, María Elena takes action. "She has positive energy that do not have the other characters. Moral energy that keeps you from being paralyzed by fear. It has no clear political ideas, but sensitivity to justice. May face a dangerous situation. Conveys a sense of hope. "In its frantic back and forth to find those guys, María Elena resort to Viking, which once was in love with her.
The maid and the fighter is structured in four parts and an epilogue. In the first, discover the Viking, in the second, Maria Elena. The third is an explosion of voices: Belka, the daughter of Mary Elena, Joselito, his grandson, the fat Rita. In the fourth, the Viking and Mary Ellen will meet again in a hospital. "There is a story of good and bad. Even in the Viking is a glimmer of humanity."
the end everyone will lose. It is as if that dark cloud of Horacio Castellanos Moya speaking punish them. It is desolation. "Sometimes, the routine becomes a tragedy." The epilogue is hard, with a wink of humor scary. "Explain what is to come, says the black tunnel of the war, his run-up. The war brings out the worst and the best man."
Aragón The saga began with where you are not (2003), followed Decline (2006) and memory Tirana (2008). Will there be a continuation after the maid and the wrestler? "Probably. These novels grow spontaneously. I have a precise design of the series, but almost always is a loose fringe." Hopefully. The reader wonders what will become of Joselito, who is now 19 years old and armed with the guerrillas.
In Disgust (1997), the writer recounts the political and cultural demolition of El Salvador, in the book In the heartbreak stories of the last storm (2009), speaks of fear, of violence that disrupts life, war, exile, the difficult human relationships. These are just two examples of his work, which shakes.
Horacio Castellanos Moya (Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 1957) grew up in El Salvador. "My stories are from El Salvador. Its axis is the experience of my education and growth in this country. I was shocked. Hence the radical nature of my subjects."
can you ever write about a country at peace? "I think I I will not see that peace. The big problem is that a society living in terror and political violence when it achieves a semblance of normality, are terrorized by criminal violence. When all this amounts to two or three generations is difficult to dismantle the mechanisms of terror. Central fatigue lives a life of constant anxiety. "
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CRITICAL
A dizzying novel
By Fernando CASTANEDA
Among the details that will indicate the place and time in the latest novel by Horacio Castellanos Moya is the Democrat political assassination of Mario Zamora Rivas, who died on February 23, 1980 at the hands of a death squad.
the book, while some military lunch in the canteen, the TV crime and announces the arrival of an international commission to El Salvador to investigate. Upon hearing the news a diner asks: "Who will have given brocket this communist? Because we were not, and his companion replied:" The captain believes that we are infiltrators. " These two sentences sum up the atmosphere of insensitivity, confusion and suspicion that prevailed then in the Central American country. Also portray the universe in which they operate Maria Elena and the Viking, the main characters in this novel coral.
The maid and the wrestler tells of the adventures of two when they meet again in extreme circumstances after many years. The Viking, a former wrestling figure turned into police and is seriously ill, with his squadron participated in the kidnapping of a young couple. The next day, when Maria Elena go to clean the house of the missing and realize the event, look for the old fighter for help to save them. If she represents the helplessness of an old person and peaceful, it reflects the brutalization of a simple man and gross, however, is able to blame for not having redeemed by his love. However, the past they share is primarily used to plot the story of how hard they fall one by one the hopes of all the characters except perhaps that of the revolutionary young grandson of Maria Elena, whose hopes are of destruction and death. In turn, the fighter's terminal illness could be interpreted as the endless agony is the perpetuation of violence. The decay of his body, which consistently emphasize, would match that has infiltrated the country, branching out into a dense tangle of passions and interests, family and politicians whose main consequence is fear. Castellanos Moya is right with that harsh and somewhat abrupt end, however, it is a dizzying novel, edges and essential.
The maid and the wrestler
Horacio Castellanos Moya
Tusquets. Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2011
267 pages. 18 euros
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